Open to More:
A Sermon on Genesis 22 and Psalm 13
By Griff Martin
For the People of First Austin: a baptist community of
faith
On the Fourth Sunday Following Pentecost
July 2, 2017
Incarnate
God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living
and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here
in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing
else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will
matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.
Amen.
Maybe
we should pray that again because God knows we are going to need it today with
this text. It’s a text that we want to run from, it’s a text that we don’t want
to claim as part of our Scriptural canon, it’s a text that raises way more
questions than answers, no one particularly loves this text and it’s caused
some serious problems and concerns.
Just
one example, one pastor proudly boasts of his deep love for this text and one
of the story he shares about this text is how it inspired him that when his son
became a teenager, he took his son on a hike, to the top of a mountain and he
read his son this story and then looked at his son and said, “you need to know
I will always love God more than I love you.” I hope this inspired his son the
get out of the house as soon as possible and his congregation to find a new
pastor because that is a gross abuse of this text.
And
there is story after story and sermon after sermon showing how poorly this text
has been interpreted and read in our history. And I was sitting trying to
listen and figure out what I was going to do with this text when Don
Vanderslice stopped by the office one afternoon to see how I was doing and I
just unloaded on him about this text. I talked about how scary it was and how
poor interpretations of this text have led to some real violence in our faith.
I talked about how I hate the poor atonement view we always attribute to this
text… as if this makes the entire substitutionary atonement theology
redeemable. I talked about my foundational theology of God, largely based on
St. Anslem’s ontological argument, that if I can think of something better and
more loving than, than I am not thinking of God because God will always be
better and more loving than the very best of human thinking. And how I really
wanted to just choose an easier text and began to question the entire
canonization of this story.
And
I said all of that in like two breaths and Don looked at me as if this was not
the usual response to “Hey man, how’s it going?” and then he said, “Well Griff,
I think you will find a way to preach this text and say something true, you
always do.” And then he changed the subject before I went back to my crazy rant
by asking if I had seen It Comes at Night. I had not seen it yet and he told me
how it was this perfect horror movie and how it had to be a metaphor about the
false fears so many hold about Islam and borders and it was just brilliant,
that it was incredible social commentary. Which lead to a long discussion about
horror movies and how really good horror movies are social commentary because
horror movies make us face the shadowy, scary overlooked parts of our life. I
mean you look at Get Out (which has to be the most brilliant movie of the year)
and how it approaches the issue of race and privilege in our world today. And
that is what scary movies and stories always do.
And
then Don left the office and I went back to deal with this story and then I
realized that works here too, that Don’s entire conversation about horror
movies had been midrash on this text. Scary stories do always teach us
something and the Bible uses scary stories and ridiculous metaphors to teach
us…. The prophets do it, mystics do it, the Bible does it.
And
this particular text is certainly a horror story.
The
first verse: “After these things God tested Abraham.” And as a reminder “these
things” mean wandering into the unknown for 20 years, waiting 20 years to have
a child at old age, and already being forced to let one child go. Which seems
like more than enough for one lifetime to me. “After these things God tested
Abraham and he said, ‘Take your son- your only son- and go to Mount Moriah and
offer him there as a sacrifice.’” The one child that you have been promised,
that child who is the very future of humanity, the one you have waited for so
long, your very future- sacrifice him.
And
Abraham follows… without question or arguing. Which does not make any sense
when you remember that just a few chapters earlier Abraham has spent 17 verses
arguing and bartering with God, trying to talk God out of destroying Sodom.
However this request to sacrifice his own son gets 0 verses of argument or
bartering, which is a clue that we need to pay attention- things don’t add up
and something more must be going on.
Abraham
follows and he journeys three days and three nights with Isaac, who by the way
is not some sweet little boy anymore, he’s aged and he’s a grown man who is old
enough to help carry the supplies on the journey, most scholars think he is
somewhere between 18 and 40. And it’s Abraham and Isaac and the servants on the
journey, note that Sarah is not with them.
And
they get to the mountain and Abraham and Isaac go up the mountain. They make an
altar, they light the fire and get the knife ready. And it’s now when Isaac says,
“Dad, where is the sacrifice?” And my guess is his voice is quivering a bit now
because it’s all adding up.
And
the story skips here and quickly takes us to this place: “Abraham stretched out
his hand and took the knife to slay his son, but the angel of the Lord called
to him, “Abraham, Abraham! Do not do this…”
And
there caught in the bushes is a ram who will be the sacrifice this day.
So
what are we to do with this text? What are we to make of it? To start
with I believe we need to begin by coming to a better understanding of
sacrifice than most of us have, which Rob Bell does in one paragraph:
“Early
humans came to the realization that their survival as a species was dependent
on things like food and water. And for food to grow, it needs sun and water in
proper proportions. Too much water and things wash away, not enough and plants
dies. Too much sun and the plants wilt, not enough and they dies as well. These
basic observations brought people to the conclusion that they were dependent on
unseen forces they could not control for their survival. The belief arose that
these forces are either on your side or they aren’t. Your crops grow or they
don’t, you’re able to have kids or not, your animals stay healthy or not. And
how do you keep those forces on your side?”
The
concept of sacrifice actually makes sense when you look at it that way. So it
makes sense that a tenth of your harvest is given to a god or goddess. But what
happens when your sacrifice does not give you the anticipated and desired
result, you assume you did not sacrifice enough. And so it does not take much
time for giving a tenth of the harvest to be replaced with giving something
more valuable like an animal, a chicken or a goat, to a bigger more valuable
animal, like a cow, until suddenly in order to survive you believe you have to
offer the most valuable item you have: your firstborn.
And
this was the practice in Canaan. It would not have been odd to hear about
someone sacrificing their first born to the gods and goddesses, in fact it
might have even be a way you measured devotion (and we need to always be
careful about systems we have to measure devotion… they interest us but they
never interest God- - a love trusts but does not measure and test), in fact it
seems to be a common practice.
And
as uncomfortable as it makes us we have to realize that Abraham’s story begins
the practice of monotheism but Abraham spends a great deal of his life with
multiple Gods, I don’t know that his view of monotheism is, like ours, that there
is one God but that his view is this God is greater than all the other gods.
Which
means this first verse, “Take Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering” might
shock us but it does not shock Abraham. And I don’t think it’s a crazy
assumption to think that Abraham might just assume that this is exactly what
God would want because that is what all the others gods desire and that maybe
God never uttered those words…. Which might be exactly why Abraham does not
spent 17 verses arguing with God like he does when it comes to Sodom….
Destroying a town does not make sense, but sacrificing your first born does.
And
it might be a warning to us about making sure we are paying attention and
listening to the right God. Which means this horror story is once again, like
all great horror stories, incredible social commentary and it exposes the
shadowy scary parts of life, like believing that a God would ever ask you to
sacrifice a child, like reminding us of the importance of making sure that you
are listening to the true God.
Because
the true God is not the God who demands something immoral and reprehensible,
the true God is the one who provides. And that might be the most important
thing we hear today…because there are a lot of folks right now claiming to hear
and follow God’s will and it looks immoral and reprehensible… And the true God
is not the one who demands something immoral and reprehensible, the true God is
the one who provides for everyone.
My
read of this text is that the only time God shows up is right before Abraham
gets himself in way over his head and does something that can’t be undone. Our
God, the true God, is the one who steps in to say “never would I ask you to
kill in my name.” (and this too is something we need to pay attention to
because there is a current of nationalistic Christianity that is getting scary
close to “kill in God’s name” and it’s going to take churches and followers
like us to stand up and say No). Our God is the one whose way is love. Our God
is the one who provides for us over and over again.
Which
might be why after this passage this God is referred to as the God of Abraham
because the true God was revealed here. And to chase a rabbit just for a
minute, but there is needed redemption at the end of this rabbit chase. I don’t
think Abraham is the first one to understand this God. Sarah does not journey
with Abraham, which is interesting because since Genesis 12 they have done
everything together and that ends here. When Abraham leaves to sacrifice Isaac,
Sarah and Abraham are never again together until he goes to bury her. And my
hunch is that Sarah knew, the God who came to our tent and gave us a child
would never ask us to do this, the God of laughter would never ask us to cause
mourning and weeping, you are not listening to the True God. But of course in
partriarchical fashion, she gets left out. But I think she is the first one to
get it and the God of Abraham should be the God of Sarah and Abraham.
At
the end of the story the God of Sarah and Abraham is the God who provides. And
that is the one true God. That is the God we worship this day.
And
because it’s so important that people understand this, the story is told over
and over again to remind folks who God is and to remind people to listen to the
right God, the true God. The question we must always be asking are which God
are we listening to? Because this horror story is just as important for me and
you as it was for its first audience.
Sure
it might not be a request to sacrifice your child but what else have the gods
asked you to sacrifice? The gods of money have surely asked you to sacrifice a
dream or even a vocation to serve them, I know you always wanted to be a writer
but being a doctor will pay better and you can have more. The gods of war are
constantly asking us to see one another as competition and in the way instead
of relating to one another as siblings sharing this earth and sacred journey,
that person there seems to be getting more than me and instead of celebrating
what they have we either try to one up them or we dismiss them. The gods of
power are constantly reminding us of the pecking order and who is more
important than who, who has more, who has privilege and trying to get us to
play by the rule: the one with the most in the end wins. The gods of image are
always reminding us who we don’t look like and how we don’t match up to the
ideal The gods of tradition remind us of all the rules and systems that keep
things in place by narrowly defining things like marriage and family. And in
the scariest words I heard last week at CBF: “If you want to be a true
proclaimer of the Gospel you must stand up against the Lord of money, America’s
first God.”…. And that is just the start, there are all sorts of gods
whispering into our ears each and every day.
There
are many gods whispering into our ears and trying to get us from the Way,
And
this story must teach us over and over again that our God is not like the other
gods, our God is provider, our God has a better way, our God is the way of love.
And
we best be always listening because we that voice is always speaking to us and
we never know when and how we might hear it. It might be your heart reminding
you of your true calling in life, it might be a prophetic voice on the margin
singing songs about community and not competition, it might the words of the
Gospel reminding us that the last will be first and the first will be last, it
might be a partner telling you that you are beautiful, it might be a sunset, it
might be a Charles Hesston like experience, it might be a hymn and it might
even be in the voice of a friend telling us about a horror movie and opening up
Scripture in a whole new way.
What
I know is that the true voice of God sounds like life, freedom and love.
And
it is the voice of salvation.
And
it’s the only voice we need to hear and follow.
Because
when it’s the only voice we hear, all things are possible. When it’s the only
voice we hear well suddenly our lives look a lot more like Jesus Christ, who
followed this voice and none other. And that is our calling to join Jesus and
to follow the voice of God only and go wherever it leads.
So
may we listen so that we can join with the Psalmist and declare: “but we
trusted in your steadfast love and our heart rejoices in your salvation.”
Amen
and Amen.
0 comments:
Post a Comment